The potential impact of Chatbots on the construction industry
According to Amondarain (2018), Chatter Robot famously known as Chatbots are considered as to be talking point in today’s business world. Due to arrival of Chatbots new realms have been opened up in customer engagement and enforced trendy ways of running a business in shape of conversational commerce. It is the most handy technology that businesses especially constriction industry can rely on.
This technology has replaced the traditional models, making applications and webpage redundant. It is a computer application, which mimics individual conversation in natural format that includes spoken language and texts utilizing techniques of artificial intelligence such as video and image processing, audio analysis and Natural Language Processing.
The interesting feature that is driving industries to utilize this technology to the fullest is its learning ability from various past interactions resulting in becoming smarter and intelligent with the flow of time.
As opined by Li, (2018), construction industry is undoubtedly a physical and a hand-on profession. It can easily be understood that construction industry has not changed quickly by digital age like other industries.
Today’s construction world has transformed far bolder in innovative approaches and technological acceptance in their workplace in particular relevance to artificial intelligence. In construction industry, Chatbots are utilized in managing workflows for increasing interaction based on location with engineers and equipments for controlling cost as well as planning.
For construction engineers, working at the construction site, chat bots based on artificial intelligence performs an important role in assisting them in their work. Being a site engineers it becomes very tough in managing relationship between implementation, design and equipment usage.
Hence, Chatbots technology is very efficient and effective enough in providing real time assistance to site engineers, which will result in increasing productivity. Artificial intelligence based Chatbots has a great impact on broader range of workplaces and consequently gaining its momentum in construction industry.
As stated by Kucherbaev et al. (2017), pragmatic solutions are offered by Chatbots to the engineers working in construction industry. Currently using communication structure can be enhanced by the integration of Chatbots.
In addition to that, artificial intelligence plays a vital role in optimization of the process. In relevance to that affable data, sharing interface can be created by the engineers based on Chatbots. It has a profound impact on the construction industry.
Chatbots helps in analyzing and finding real time information regarding team performance and machinery. The condition of the machines used in construction of building and the progression of the work at the construction site can easily be assessed and scrutinized by the implementation of Chatbots.
Activity related photo at the construction site and progress sharing has been possible because of this innovative technology. It also helps in tracking activity progress on a real time basis. It provides simple accessibility to locations related information and drawings.
The innovative technology is proficient enough to send notifications to site engineers. As opined by Miettinen (2018), in time contractor management and procurement is done by Chatbots through providing assistance by sending notifications in case of urgent requirements and needs.
The impact of Chatbots can also be found in maintenance of multi disciplinary coordination through easy access to construction drawings and documents. Moreover, learning patterns by site engineers creates intrinsic opportunities leading to optimization of construction workflows. Due to the incorporation of Chatbots efficiency has improved with customer service round the clock.
The new technology has the capability for outperforming humans through maintaining speedup in handling customer queries. The impression of Chatbots is appropriate for established industries and large companies. Tremendous untapped opportunities are there for small businesses in using Chatbots for generation of leads.
In regards to those service professionals highly relying on inbound leads for sustainable business, Chatbots can perform most heavy lifting. Handling inquiries, engaging into potential leads, auto-tagging and capturing them using qualified data followed by sorting those in accordance to priority Chatbots can easily be authored.
Along with machine learning, Chatbots can process all the collected data for providing prescriptive and descriptive analytics about the projects in progress (Schlesinger et al., 2018).
It also helps in project estimation during planning stages. Through consuming more data better quality of analysis can be provided. Natural Language Processing along with Chatbots is becoming better day by day to understand human language.
The promise of the progression depends on reducing complexity related to interfaces. Avoiding memorizing particular commands one can simple interact with the Chatbots in showing reports about office building of a big company.
The application will reply with significant events, completion progress and much more related information. The impact of Chatbots can be strengthened by amalgamation of Internet of Things in construction industry. IOT is emerging as important technology while shaping the world’s future by getting together physical devices and things connected through internet.
As opined by Miettinen (2018), artificial intelligence changed the working progress of construction industry while doing business. With the application Chatbots, construction industry found undeniably great partner in technology. In course of time, technology is boosting safety, productivity and many other critical aspects in earning business success.
Chatbots is progressively emphasizing on real estate industry. Many realtors are showing their interest in capitalization of Chatbots technology. It is acting as one of the strongest marketing tools for interacting with the visitors.
A Chatbots is not a replacement of real estate agent but assist an agent in relevance to information about properties. As opined by Li, (2018), the developing digital world increased expectations of consumers from brands and expectations from the brands is to communicate with right and needful information at the right time.
Realtors were struggling in meeting the hourly needs but with the rise of innovative technology that is Chatbots they are now liable in providing the right information at any time. With the incorporation of Chatbots website visitors can now easily ask queries regarding any property in place of searching information online.
The clients can now conveniently converse with real estate Chatbots and acquire resilient information faster than ever. Chatbots platform allows enterprises in building artificial intelligence bots within minutes and organize the same across every channels.
Advancements made in fields such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing and IOT have furthered the quality and efficiency of Chatbots used in construction industry in terms of easy adaptability, conversational simplicity and capabilities which allows users for resolving complex requests through straightforward natural language.
Various instigating factors are there in building Chatbots needful in construction industry. The first and foremost reason is immediate response and no waiting time. Chatbots is an online application. Thus, no matter which hour in a day, an engineer or realtor receives new queries for property, Chatbots provide reliable information.
The application is useful in handling frequently asked questions and is considered to be the best option staying out from daily business hours. Chatbots can easily avail information to visitors, when the agents associated with construction industry are unavailable (Jones, 2018).
Realtors and site engineers are eligible in setting auto responders while taking care of lead and interact while making information related to interested property is available. Employees in construction industry spent 20 to 30 percent time on performing repetitive tasks, checking similar activity and answering similar types of questions asked by the customers.
The gap between construction and manufacturing sector has been affecting productivity in industry which pushes it in using artificial intelligence based Chatbots as solution for the aroused problem.
Secondly, Chatbots are effective in starting an upfront conversation. The customers getting prompt response results in building brand value and increasing brand recognition.
A Chatbots is responsible for initiation of a face-to-face interaction with visitors and while interaction it can answer as well as ask questions to the person sitting in front (Kuprevich, 2017).
Thirdly, Chatbots can collect all the useful information on inquiry. It is assigned to collect information automatically while a visitor is engaged into a conversation every time with a Chatbots. It has been utilized in carrying out the unnecessary loads on the employees.
The impact of Chatbots in construction industry varies from IT related stuffs, operations and manufacturing, research and development, finance, sales and accounting. Chatbots are capable of generating leads while information is collected in database for realtors.
Situations may arise that a client is searching for buying and selling a property asking for location preference, housing type, number of available bathrooms and more. All information can be analyzed by realtor for campaigns in future marketing. Fourthly, scheduling property viewing is also a feature of Chatbots.
By the end of every conversation, the application has the efficiency in providing information regarding the assigned realtor of interested property and thereafter requests are taken for scheduling appointment. The software is associated with taking a note of the preferred time and date and finally the agent is notified.
In certain cases, where Chatbots are unable in answering particular questions, inquiries are easily directed to sales representative or customer service for handling the situation further (Mann and Roberts, 2015). Fifthly, Chatbots are capable of improving inbound market campaigning.
The technology is capable of smartly asking and requesting information from webpage visitors and guides them in taking needful actions such as contacting property agent, subscribing to newsletter, filling up of required contact forms and more. The information is helpful in enhancement of inbound marketing of realtors considering as part of lead generation.
All these can be framed using Lawrence Lessig’s regulations based on market, law, architecture and norms.
Architecture
As opined by Arditi, (2014), the architectural efficiency of Chatbots is delivering a lot of facilities to the construction sector in performing their actions ranging from raw material collection to selling houses to customers in an effective way.
The software looks like a normal app consisting of an application layer, APIs and database. The application layer allows the customers and company officials in interacting between each other. Training Chatbots occurs at much larger and faster phase in teaching a human being.
Customer service Chatbots are fed with innumerous conversation logs and depending on those logs the application is proficient in understanding the type of questions in accordance to the answers. Architecture is considered ubiquitous and is the primary approach of regulation. Technologies are creating innovative possibilities frequently for human interaction and behaviour.
Natural language processing performs a vital role in effectiveness of Chatbots in construction business. As opined by Li, (2018), Chatbots assumes a combo of steps for conversion of customer’s speech or text in structured data, which is useful in selecting related and relevant answers.
Few language-processing steps are as follows. Sentiment analysis tries to estimate the experience of the user else, it is forwarded to human. Through tokenization, the NLP segments a string of words in token or pieces that are linguistically symbolic and are of different use.
Named entity recognition searches for similar category of words such as building details, area of the plot, name and address of the user, whichever information is necessary. Normalization is the process by which common spelling mistakes and typographical errors are scrutinized which the user intended to convey.
Finally by dependency parsing the Chatbots look for subjects, verbs, objects, nouns, common phrases and others in the text given by the user for finding dependency and phrases which users might try to convey.
Figure 1: Lawrence Lessig’s Code
(Cohen and Sundararajan, 2015)
Social norms
Social norms are the social standards, enforced and policed by peer pressure. Chatbots brings strategic implementation of all works done in construction industry. The application helps in performing all the tasks in a formal way without any flaws and jumbled up fashion (Cohen and Sundararajan, 2015).
The behavioral standards are created due to social expectation and custom. Providing the rightful information about the building and related data are the special norms which govern various aspects of human lives.
Market
Construction industry is associated with trading buildings and apartments in market. Human behaviour is then regulated by market using effective tools. As ststed by Arditi (2014), price of building materials and finished apartments creates biasness in human behaviour in different ways.
In favor of services and goods, the creators and suppliers are biased having highest prices. in construction business, demanders and purchasers are attracted in favor of lower prices.
Law
A set of norms is followed by most of the societies, which are provided with social status. These norms are referred as laws. After creation, these laws are endorsed by social authorities. The companies dealing in construction industry need to follow some predefined laws.
The information shared in Chatbots is highly secured and can never be misused by unauthorized person while interaction. The algorithms used in designing Chatbots are highly efficient in providing protection to the information of the company and the customer also.
According to Mitkus and Mitkus (2014), the technological innovativeness of Chatbots in construction industry has brought in various changes and strategies in earning success. Various disruptions have also been followed in this strategic implementation.
Considering various processes in construction industry such as manufacturing, acquisition, staffing, supply and communication has been enhanced in respect to performance. Chatbots are disrupting the working processes of construction industry by various ways.
In case of recruitment, as opined by Arditi (2014), Chatbots helps a lot in screening process by getting information of prospective employees and performance of background checks quickly. While interacting with customers or other stakeholders Chatbots ensures on boarding which is a self-service process having the ability in talking to employee onsite and easiness in interaction with software based on workforce management.
Chatbots proficiently serve as mobile assistant, which help employees in getting their answers, employees in getting their needful assistance, customers get their desired information and company getting all the records of these information.
During training Chatbots is very effective as it enables more interactive involvement by employees. The training session is livelier rather than sitting in front of a standard video or watching PowerPoint presentation. Chatbots creates seamless sequence between consumer necessities, property market and construction agent.
Renters and homebuyers are minimizing the intermediaries and are utilizing internet as major means in discovering property. The usage of Chatbots in construction industry has reduced operational investments, improved efficiency, reduced wastage of resources, safeguarded construction industry from cyber threats and elevated customer service.
Current Chatbots use cases in construction industry
Various areas where Chatbots is used in transforming construction industry are as follows:
Property Management
As opined by Ernstsen et al. (2018), property managers find tenants, keeping units occupied, keeping tenants satisfied, maintenance of infrastructure and machinery, finding vendors and acting as bridge between tenants and property owners.
People are feeling it easier in searching for their new homes due to the intelligence of the search function. Consumers can easily find more and better-sophisticated matches due to availability of various layers of actionable information.
Data analytics and lead generation
As stated by Cohen and Sundararajan (2015), using Chatbots, agents and companies in construction industry targets amazing accuracy, customers who are likely in going through with a sale and increasing the chance of success. Investors in construction industry use Chatbots in setting and monitoring growth goals and income.
Chatbots are one of the most obvious examples of artificial intelligence that has a deep impact on construction industry in objectifying customer service. With artificial intelligence in Chatbots enables the search bar in processing natural language and generation of more leads.
References
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Ernstsen, S.K., Maier, A., Larsen, L.R. and Thuesen, C., 2018. Is construction ripe for disruption?. In 34th Annual Conference ARCOM 2018.
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Jones, R.A., 2018. Concerning the apperception of robot-assisted childcare. Philosophy & Technology, pp.1-12.
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Li, R.Y.M., 2018. Software Engineering and Reducing Construction Fatalities: An Example of the Use of Chatbot. In An Economic Analysis on Automated Construction Safety (pp. 105-116). Springer, Singapore.
Mann, R.A. and Roberts, B.S., 2015. Business law and the regulation of business. Nelson Education
Miettinen, J., 2018. Utilization of Chatbots in Customer Interface.
Mitkus, S. and Mitkus, T., 2014. Causes of conflicts in a construction industry: A communicational approach. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 110, pp.777-786.
Schlesinger, A., O’Hara, K.P. and Taylor, A.S., 2018, April. Let’s Talk About Race: Identity, Chatbots, and AI. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. 315). ACM.
